Lineanongrata

moving

 

Where to begin after such a long time of absence ? It's hard to say because it's hard to figure out where from I'm writing.

Moving indeed, from one country to another, back, or forth, depending on how I look at it.

After almost eleven years in France, moving back to Germany is not as easy as I thought.

You know how it goes. You live in one place and you think that everything will be better in another. All your dreams will come true. In that other place.

That's the reason I moved to France in the first place. That and some odd wish for adventure, which I still feel today.

But when you do that, when you go live in another country, you decide to venture far out of your comfort zone. Everything is still to be done.

When I went to France, I didn't know anyone there. I needed to find a place to live, friends, make a routine for myself, create a new home zone.

 

I thought I'd never come back (go back ?). All my plans for a future played out in France. 

But all the while I stayed attached to my home country. Came back for all the holidays, had most of my friends in Germany, and I have to admit that I had a hard time connecting to the French. I didn't make so many friends. Not the kind I had 'back home', at least. The kind you always come back to and everything is as it always was.

Homesickness hit a while ago and all of a sudden I thought everything would be easier for me in Germany.

 

In a way it is. Easier. I missed nordic nature and feel much more comfortable in it than I could ever feel in the South. Friends and family are very much present and care.

But still: What a fool was I to have thought that I would come back with no effort at all. That everything would be gloriously easy.

 

Everything has to be done all over again. The search for a place to live, the paperwork, making a routine, and all in all, the glimmer of 'new' and exciting is painfully missing. After all, I'm coming back, not going somewhere new.

Or, let's say, in a way I'm going somewhere new because I'm not used to adult life in Germany, but it all feels terribly old and sometimes I have to remind myself that there is adventure in this, too.

home

Home is where putting on a winter sweater in the middle of July is acceptable.

we'll probably pay rent at the veterinarian's very soon

Would anyone care to take a guess as to how many times I have been at the Vet's last month ?

An unbelievable six times, the checkups and pulling out of stitches and picking up of sick dogs after a day's observation not counted.

One with a fever, one with herbs in her ears, one with a head that almost got bitten off and one with a herb that got under his skin and had to be taken out.

Every time the same show: Only Orion would jump in the car on his own. The other two had to be lifted (! by me !). Once I have them at the Vet's, they'll start whining incredibly loud until my ears fall off and everybody looks at us accusingly.
On the way home they have to be lifted in the car again, by me.
And now I have one that looks as though he had a zipper around his throat and when you open it, his head falls off.
And the other who looks as though he put on his Tuxedo to take his girlfriend to the Prom.

'He should rest' the Veterinarian said.
'Sure', I think, the question is just: How ?

a walk

This post is titled 'a walk', but it might have been 'a week's worth of photos' or 'what we love'. Because at the moment I don't have a lot of time to post or even to think about the things that are happening, but there is one hour that is more or less always the same. The one hour I reserve for taking a walk  with the dogs.

It's usually a solitary hour (even though there are four of us) where I feel strongly about nature and see so many things changing incredibly quickly over a week or so.

I love how there Irises are just there. All of a sudden.

I love the geometry of the first spring green in the vineyard.

'Drinking while walking right in it' is a huge favorite. For some of us. It's difficult to restrain myself. But I've yet to give in.

It's amazing how rain is omnipresent. It's either here, or we're waiting for it. That's as 'May' as it will get.

I wonder about the grasses. Can oats really be growing already ? Grasses are something I associate so much with fall.

I love the feeling of 'this is the South'. This is the South because of the small huts, because of the vineyards. Because of the smells. Because of the ever changing sky. Because of the birds and the cicadas.

We love playing 'where is the 45 kg doggy ?'.

How lovely is seeing the sky after the day spent in front of the computer...

watching my mother fall asleep over a book,

finishing a child's sweater ?

But nothing is as funny as seeing what Akbar left for the cat after a raid on the cat food. Really, that's my absolute favorite.

We're off to London for a trade fair next week. Cross all your fingers and toes so that we'll find an importer.
I hope I'll find a moment to post. Because I'll meet a very special person I've never met before. My first blog friend meeting ever. I'm incredibly excited. Janet, I'm on my way for cake, coffee and London ! And a no-boy day.

why on earth ?

While I was running on tiny paths somewhere behind the winery tonight, I thought about why I run. I also thought I would die on the spot, but not every run can be a good run, I have learned.

Tonight was one of the worse runs I ever did. I hurt even before I set out, and it didn't stop until the final two or three kilometers. My heart poked me from inside, my lungs burned, the wind blew into me and slowed me down, I didn't see the bigger stones laying on the ground and almost strained my ankle.
If ever you want to run yourself senseless every two days, I recommend you don't lengthen your run by one third on a whim and do that two days in a row. On the third day there'll be hell to pay, I promise. 'Senseless' only works if you are actually able to put one foot in front of the other.

So if today was so bad, why on earth would I go out there again day after tomorrow ?

I could tell you it was because I love pushing my body to its limits. But that would be rather grand of me. While I'm running I don't feel grand, I'm only grateful nobody can see me. In my head a little voice screeches 'see, I told you so. You could be happily drinking a beer and eating a cupcake, my dear, but NO, you have to be out here, trying to separate your lungs from the rest of your body, young lady. Do you hear me ?'

So maybe I run because I have hypoglycemia (big time) and my blood sugar is stable if I run.
Eating 450 supplementary calories is not to be underestimated. Maybe something sweet ?
The dog needs the run to be happy.
I need the run to be happy.
I love to see the countryside in different light each day. The other night I was afraid I wouldn't get back until after nightfall, which would have been awkward, and boy, did I run fast that day. Arrived at home with the last daylight.
It's the only moment of complete solitude I have.
Living on the edge is what I like. There's always the chance I might break an ankle out there. I always imagine how I will then send Orion the dog to the winery to get the rescue crew.

But all that are only minor reasons I could come up with to tell a nifty story.

Truth is, I only run because I get to wear fancy special socks that have 'left' and 'right' written on them and make me howl with laughter, and I can shower twice in one day. Hot water is my very favorite thing in the world.

glowing

Europe turned the clock to wintertime this weekend and it changes everything.

At seven pm it's dark outside. All of a sudden.

As though winter had already arrived. Without giving notice.

Only during the day do I notice it's still autumn. Nights are getting colder. If I may say so, living in the South of France.

But daytime brings light. Golden light that floods everything and seems to live inside everything it touches, making things glow.

Even fruit flies. Because even if I have to end this post on a lesser romantic note: We were infested. It's the wine and the very end of harvest season. It's normal, and sometimes it's even pretty, but mostly it's a pest.

Nota bene: Even pests can be pretty. Which makes me think of siblings. Whom I'll be seeing pretty soon.

starting a new year

Two or three beautiful Indian summer days grace us with their colors at the moment.

With deep reds and light yellows and a warm sun that almost makes believe it's still August.

If it weren't for the quiet scent of colder winds in the air that you can smell even when the sun is shining brightly.
 

We held our end of the harvest party yesterday and it was a wonderful closure for a difficult but exciting time on the winery. Don't tell me I have been complaining all the time about fatigue and not enough time for myself, because I know. Maybe I'll keep complaining about fatigue just for good measure.
But in a way I'll miss working with the boys every day. It had it's boy scout moments. And a very strong feeling of 'we' that can only be had in moments of extreme stress.
I'll still be seeing them every day but they work outside and I work mostly at the office, so it won't be exactly the same. Vincent and I won't know what has been going on, unless they tell us (which they will. François can't keep quiet anyway.).
Nevertheless the party was a success yesterday. In a way it marks the end of the 'old' year on a winery and the beginning of the new one, with all the working cycles beginning anew. It's traditional to end harvest with a meal for all the workers and ours comprised a rabbit François has shot a week or so ago (yes, it's hunting season, again. At about 6:30 am on weekends we wake up because our dogs are going crazy, barking at the hunters who are standing in front of them, in the middle of the road, rifles unbroken (!!!) and the hunting dogs behind the winery, supposedly chasing wild pigs across the winery so the hunters can shoot them. It's the best case scenario and has never happened. If the hunters weren't such a stubborn and aggressive lot I could tell them that no wild pig will ever come across our winery because we have three monster dogs barking and howling that will prevent them from doing so.).
He cleaned and cooked it on an open fire and it was absolutely delicious with the secret sauce his wife makes for these occasions. No way to have the recipe, of course.

The bunny world took a vicious turn on François, though. This contestant was found on his car roof and his sign reads 'not even afraid of the hunter'.
Poor man. The hunting life won't ever be the same for him.

last last last last last day of harvest

Our last day of harvest saw us out in the vineyard before eight, with new headdresses,

fancifully crochet. It's his wife's and Benoît told her she can't wear it in public because he needs to have a serious reputation with the people in their village, but apparently we don't count in the serious category.

That might be because yesterday François put chestnuts and stones in his knapsack (Benoît found one stone and, believing that was all, carried the rest of the load around with him all day). Who knows. They're all so very sensitive.

Our last day of harvest also saw a mouse trap glued to Françoi's car door (ready to snap shut, of course, because where would be the joke otherwise). Maybe that was a consequence of yesterday's chestnuts and stones. Possibly maybe.

There is another big practical joke in the works and I'll tell you about it later. Right now I fear the person concerned (can you guess his name ?) might read this post and the joke would cease to be a secret.

As I said before, there will be a lot of cellar work going on around here in the next fifteen days, but it's getting less and less. We got all the grapes in and that's a huge relieve.

So now we can go on to more pleasant things:

Someone had a one week birthday and is growing and growing and growing. Believe me when I say that reading 'will grow 150 % in one year' is one thing, seeing what it really means is another. One week of growth and they have doubled in size. I have never seen anything grow so fast.

This little lady is my new dog, and she'll probably be called Wind.

This fat little rat caught Vincent's fancy and he doesn't have a name yet. As he's half great Dane and half German Shepperd, Christian thought Kant or Nietzsche, Goethe or Schiller would be good names. If he's anything like his parents, he'll have a brain the size of a pea and those names would be really fun.

Anybody want a black puppy ? We've got one just like these two but all black. We ship overseas... (I'm kidding, but if anybody in the Languedoc region needs a new dog...)

Have a lovely weekend, all of you.

so romantic

Life on a winery is romantic. That's common knowledge. For example today. Today was such a highly romantic day.

Getting up before seven is one of the romantic things I thought I would be doing for the rest of my life when I studied graphic design.

Being in the vineyard before eight is right up there with that wish (it is pretty out there before eight. I have to admit that much. The sun rises gently, the air colors faintly in roses and oranges).

Manual harvest is something for nature lovers. Cutting grapes all day, an average of 1,2 tons a person (yours truly included) is simply lovely and invaluable exercise. Really. Each of the boxes you see in those photos weighs somewhere from 15 to 19 kg. That means that halfway full I have to drag them because carrying them is out of the question. But still, I look like the governor of California now. I'm that muscly.

The first morning everyone still tries to impress. The afternoon is already much more honest. Each person finds a rhythm and forgets about the others.

I tried to amputate my finger so I didn't have to continue, but that didn't work. I swallowed two flies (on the romanticism-scale, one being the worst and ten the most romantic, that would be about a nine) and almost choked on the second one, but it didn't change anything, either. I still had to continue with the rest of them.

After the day's work, let's say around six thirty, you think you're done with the day, but romanticism never stops and there's still the cleaning to be done,

the tank to be insulated (I'll tell you the reason tomorrow, when I'm less tired), a beer to be swallowed (which was good, if not romantic) with the whole team, which, inevitably, will attract the most idiotic jokes of the day (end-of-the-day beers do that).

And thus the most, the very utmost, the most romantic thing I have photographed today was this container of radiant plutonium which I found in the cellar attic.

...oh no, I forgot. There was this, too:

As far as romantic goes... ? What do you think ? Found it in the cellar, too.

Well, in any case, I will put myself and my romantically aching back in bed now and I wish you all sweet dreams. Tomorrow at something before seven I'll have to wake up again and I dread the moment. Moving or resting are fine, but getting up to move after resting hurts a lot right now.

... ah, all right. I'll admit it was great fun, too. But the ache is real, all the same.

rest

Have a good weekend, all of you.